For any well-heeled movie fanatic choosing a favorite Coen Brothers movie is always going to be a tough decision. Over the course of their nearly 25-year career, the two brothers have collaborated to create a huge stable of iconic films spanning nearly every mainstream movie genre, with the glaring exception being sci-fi/fantasy (get on it fellas). To choose from you’ve got romantic comedy, murder-mystery, thrillers, dramas, gangsters, heists, chases, existential stoner epics… even a musical… all of which are executed with a tone wholly unique to the brothers.

With today marking the DVD release of Joel and Ethan Coen‘s Oscar-winning masterpiece, No Country For Old Men, we’ve put the screws to our body of movie-loving geekorati here at Geeks of Doom to find out what their favorite Coen Brothers films are, and why.

O BROTHER, WHERE ART THOU?

I’ve been a huge fan of The Big Lebowski since seeing its debut on the big screen and have been a devout practitioner of Zen Dudeism thanks to Jeff Bridges channeling the entirety of the slacker zeitgeist into one being, yet the Coen Brothers movie that I hold in the highest regard is the Coen Brother’s musical, O Brother, Where Art Thou?. The movie is based in-part on Homer’s Odyssey, which both brothers claimed at the time to have never actually read, but rather absorbed through ‘cultural osmosis,’ and is brimming with inspired performances by the likes of George Clooney and Tim Blake Nelson, and Coen regulars John Turturro (previously in the Coen’s Miller’s Crossing, Barton Fink, and The Big Lebowski) and John Goodman (previously in the Coen’s Raising Arizona, Barton Fink, The Hudsucker Proxy, and The Big Lebowski). O Brother is the most delightful and imaginative integration of musical and comedy I have personally ever come across — not only is it a hilarious film, but the musical score is just magical! The soundtrack has the distinction of being among my favorite recordings and is still current in my rotation nearly eight years on, and I credit it for awakening in me a love of bluegrass that I never knew existed.

FARGO

My favorite Coen Brothers movie would have to be Fargo. I could rave about the genius casting and amazing performances, but it was the tone of the film that absorbed me. Everything was so brilliantly understated that ordinary moments became extraordinary, and extraordinary moments became unforgettable. Nobody who has seen the film will ever look at a wood-chipper the same way again, that’s for sure!

INTOLERABLE CRUELTY

Maybe the most overlooked Coen Brothers movie, Intolerable Cruelty suffered from bad marketing. I didn’t even know the Coens made this when it came out! I wrote it off as a trite romance comedy and ignored it. A year later, I was bored in my basement and found it on HBO. Alright, so maybe it’s not the best work the Coens have done, but it’s certainly above the crap that it’s lumped with in Wal-Mart bargain bins across the country. The previews made it seem like Miles (George Clooney) and Marylin (Catherine Zeta-Jones) are bound for a boring, stale love story. What plays out is a great cat-and-mouse, con-artisty competition between the two as they push the bounds of marital law. Throw in Cedric The Entertainer nailing peoples’ asses, and you definitely have a movie that’s worth on a rainy day afternoon. On sale now for $5 at Wal-Mart.

NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN

With the exception of the their remake of The Ladykillers, Joel and Ethan Coen can do no wrong in my book. Going to see a Coen Brothers film is a very special occasion, you never know what you are going to get once the lights go down. It has been this way since Blood Simple. While it is a difficult choice to make, No Country For Old Men is my favorite film by the Coen Brothers. The Coen Brothers adapting Cormac McCarthy is not as far fetched as it sounds. Just go back and watch Blood Simple, Fargo, and The Man Who Wasn’t There — the writing has been on the screen for over 24 years. No Country For Old Men is one of those films that the ending is bound to upset some people. The ending makes perfect sense, it is beautiful. It is so fitting. Tommy Lee Jones had a wonderful year in 2007. In No Country For Old Me, he comes across as a classic character from a Sam Peckinpah film. He plays the man who outlived his times with the same degree of fatalism that William Holden perfected in The Wild Bunch. If Paul Thomas Anderson channeled George Stevens and John Huston for There Will Be Blood, then there is no doubt in my mind that the Coen Brothers channeled Sam Peckinpah’s spirit for their masterpiece. Javier Bardem is the personification of pure evil in the film as Anton Chigurh. Josh Brolin continued his winning streak of great performances in 2007. Kelly Macdonald proved she was more than just a pretty face in a cafe. Woody Harrelson’s presence in the film made us wonder why he has not been in more of their films. No Country For Old Men is one of those rare times where you watch a film and you know you are watching something unfold before your eyes. The Coen Brothers remind us we have seen it all before, but they manage to make it fresh like we are watching for the first time.

BARTON FINK

The Coen Bros. have this annoying habit of making their most recent flick the best movie they’ve ever made. It’s true, and it’s annoying, because it makes me seem fickle whenever I update my friends on the latest “Best Coen Bros. Movie.” No one takes me seriously anymore! So… rather than dealing in Bests, I’m gonna deal in Favorites right now. Or, rather, Second-Favorites… because No Country truly has won me over, heart and soul. But before that, there was a little story about a playwrite from New York named “Barton Fink” who moves out to L.A. to write for the “pictures.” The reason I love this movie is because of how utterly mundane it is. I mean… it’s people talking to each other! There’s no chase, there’s no action, there’s really not even a clearly defined genre to place the movie in! All it is is John Tuturro wandering around, getting into sometimes funny, sometimes bizarre situations, and just generally being neurotic John Turturro. And yet… it’s utterly fascinating, and utterly endearing! You can’t take your eyes off it! “Barton Fink” is an indescribably engrossing movie, and that is why I love it. But, what makes it my favorite? That’s easy. John Goodman, and the last ten minutes of the movie. If nothing else, watch it for that. It’ll stick with you for a long time afterwards (sort of the way No Country does).

MILLER’S CROSSING

My choice for best Coen Brothers movie is Miller’s Crossing (1990). Miller’s Crossing was the Coen Brothers’ attempt at making “film noir” and — like all great crime stories — features several characters on the losing end of a moral dilemma and a pursuit of redemption as central themes. It remains one of the Coen’s most cynical films, which is saying a lot.

Miller’s Crossing features Gabriel Byrne as a crook and the voice-of-reason for prohibition era Irish gangster Albert Finney. Both Byrne and Finney are in love with the same woman (Marcia Gay Harden) and are being targeted by a group of Italian mobsters, led by Jon Polito. The Italian mob wants Finney to give up John Turturro, playing a bookkeeper that embezzled money. Leo can’t do this because he is the brother of his lover and Byrne can’t shoot him when he’s ordered to, in part, because he is ALSO sleeping with the bookkeepers sister. In addition to all the double-dealing and back-stabbing, there is an amazing confrontation when the Italian mob comes to kill Finney that is one of my favorite scenes in the history of movies. Once Finney realizes the hit is on and his bodyguards are dead, he throws a machine gun from a second story window, climbs out after it, and uses it to kill a carload of fleeing hit men.

Harden also offers one of my favorite movie lines when she tells Finney: “I never met anybody who made being a son-of-a-bitch such a point of pride.”

Miller’s Crossing is ultimately a story of revenge, duty, loneliness, and isolation (the two latter being central themes on most Coen Brothers movies), but remains as eccentric and wild as any of their other great films.

THE BIG LEBOWSKI

A bit of an obvious choice (it was a debate between this and Miller’s Crossing), but one that I have no shame in hiding. The Coens’ 1998 feature is quite possibly the funniest film in Los Angeles County, which would place it high in the running for funniest worldwide. There is no simple way to whittle the impact this film will have on you and your life into the confines of a single paragraph. If you’ve seen it, then you sir or madam are an achiever, and proud I am of all of you. If not, the Malibu Chief of Police would like a word with your ugly fuckin’ goldbrickin’ ass.

MILLER’S CROSSING

In almost all their movies, the Coen Brothers have been known for creating characters that are at once memorable yet mysterious. Throughout the course of Miller’s Crossing, their greatest work, the viewers are never let into the mind of Tom Reagan, the film’s protagonist. We see Reagan play all sides against each other, we see him dodge and weave his web of elaborate lies. And when the end of the film comes and all the plotlines resolve, we realize we know no more about him than we did at the beginning, really. Yet miraculously, we also find that the storytelling and direction have combined to make him one of the most memorable characters in all of cinema. Ultimately, the Coens use their characters as vessels for their elaborate, quirky, and gripping stories. Miller’s Crossing shows that that’s definitely not a bad thing.

FARGO

To me, Fargo is less a movie and more a milestone in my evolution as a human being. It came along at an impressionable age and left its mark alongside The Usual Suspects and Pulp Fiction in my moviegoing psyche. It is so many things and bespeaks quite well the terrifying abilities of the Coen Boys. If you want a sly comedy of manners, you watch Fargo. If you want a desolate look at greed and violence, you watch Fargo. That it works well at those edges is almost as miraculous as the fact that the center holds.

NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN

I know that it’s unappealing to take the “easy” route and pick the latest and greatest from a director or actor, but I do think that I would have to go with No Country for Old Men. I’ve always been kind of weirded out by the Coen Brothers movies — as much as I do love them — and it’s tough to pick a true best of them all. Everyone is well-aware of the questionable ending and that “What the hell…” walk we experienced while walking out of the theater, but that’s also a testament to how good a movie it is; for two full hours, we were so enthralled, so aware, so entertained and so petrified by this movie and its goofy-haired villain, that a weak ending didn’t even slow it down. None of the other Coen offerings have the power that this one possesses and none of them have the little gold man to back it up.

THE BIG LEBOWSKI

I know this will be a big favourite with many-a-geek and I thought I’d put my two cents in. I loved this movie purely on the basis of many factors. I loved the non-stoner stoner-esque nature, John Goodman’s infallible crankiness, Jeff Bridges’ sublimeness and Flea as a dodgy accent. Although Julianne Moore infuriates me on the same par as Nicole Kidman, this movie rocks!